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Looks terrible, the piñata harvesting was so bad that it almost made me forget how silly the nodes look.

I appreciate the need to save money and get working place holders in, but trying to present it as anything adequate is humorous.

How's a game that's supposed to bring back the sincerity and necessity of dedicated crafters and supply supposed to remain dignified when the resources and harvesting look like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog?

Terrible...

Edited June 28, 2016 by bahamutkaiser

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes... Than if they're upset, they'll be a mile away, and barefoot

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Looks terrible, the piñata harvesting was so bad that it almost made me forget how silly the nodes look.

I appreciate the need to save money and get working place holders in, but trying to present it as anything adequate is humorous.

How's a game that's supposed to bring back the sincerity and necessity of dedicated crafters and supply supposed to remain dignified when the resources and harvesting look like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog?

Terrible...

Curious, any precedent bad experience with this "piñata" style harvesting?

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"Looks terrible, the piñata harvesting was so bad that it almost made me forget how silly the nodes look."

I think the draw of the piñata harvesting is that you have to take time to collect each resource as they hit the ground. If you didn't have this messier way of harvesting it would be easy to swoop in harvest and leave.. This method can create conflict when players of the opposing faction are in the area. If you had players that came along to guard harvesters or it simply became a better reason to create an opportunity for combat there are reasons.

I think the nodes look great. Given the overall style of the game so far (which to be fair looks really good) I don't know how you came to this conclusion. Without being too much of a hooligan (And it would feel justified to me here given the lack of thought put forth in your post) you sound like one of these children that played hunger dome when it first came out and had no textures saying, "THIS GAME LOOKS LAGGY, poorly made socksty.. I'll never play this."

How many of the more polished things have we seen that looked crappy?

Rhetorical question. It's a work in progress.

I personally can't wait for nodes like "agate" and the funkier looking ones.. There's a lot they can do.. I want even weirder resources that are very much distinct from one another that would allow for a variety of strange looking nodes and fun models with textures for crafted items.

"I appreciate the need to save money and get working place holders in, but trying to present it as anything adequate is humorous."

It's progress. It will be in the game. It will get revisions. Spare me.

"How's a game that's supposed to bring back the sincerity and necessity of dedicated crafters and supply supposed to remain dignified when the resources and harvesting look like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog?"

I don't get the negative attitude. I guess it's good to express your feelings of the harvesting process and the esteem of crafting not syncing up giving you disconcerted feelings but things take time to develop and this attitude doesn't help anyone.. It feels very petulant and unproductive.

I have faith they know what they're doing and that the harvesting is going to be interesting etc. I personally just want interesting nodes and materials that are very distinct from one another.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Noctonomous

“There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” -Jorah Mormont of Bear Island

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Curious, any precedent bad experience with this "piñata" style harvesting?

Landmark, has "piñata" harvesting, but all the resources just float towards you and there is no need for manual pick ups. It wasn't bad, IMO, just different. I also like the "piñata" approach ACE is taking, because that means that I can come in as a Fae and steal all the wood you just spent lumbering >:]

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I think that if harvesting is just running around to locate and standing still to harvest, the animation isn't gonna make a big difference, unless animation X looks less boring to you then animation Y for some reason, so from that point of view I think it's a bit silly to complain.

The more interesting thing would be info of how / where / when nodes will spawn / respawn etc, which is the part don't know yet.

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Why not? I presume there is a belt and pulley system hidden inside that mill to increase the speed of the saw beyond that of the wheel.

It's not entirely a thing of speed however, but more a thing of force or power and transition thereof. Belt and pulley can cause you to lose a lot of your efficiency and power output, when your input is already fairly low with a stream (or better yet: waterfall), you need to have as little moving parts as possible to reduce loss by friction (also wear and tear needs to be taken in account). Gears are often a lot better than belts and pulleys for that. And an up down sawmill like in my picture has gravity help a big deal in adding force to the sawing stroke.

Belt and pulley works great for actual motors (steam/gasoline/electric) because they can afford to lose some of the force and instead have it go faster. Oh yeah, did I mention that water powered lumber mills used to be terribly slow? Especially compared to modern day lumber mills.

And actually, how easy it is to repair also plays a huge role in its design. As rectangular saws are just easier to forge and sharpen and is also more efficient for really thick logs where you would otherwise need a huge circle saw.

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While some would argue that it's more immersive or holds more suspension of belief, I don't see that as benefiting the gameplay. If you had people wearing bracelets or holding runes you'd run into technical issues and lose silhouetting for gathering professions.

1.) Slapping a bracelet on a character isn't easy, especially with the varying body types archetypes have in crowfall. Getting it to fit on a wrist, not do funkiness like clipping, etc is more work than slapping a pickaxe to the side of a character and varying its size by character. Granted neither way is a walk in the park, as nothing in development is ever as easy as it seems, but I'd guess that it's a whole hell of a lot more work to model decent looking jewelry. Which is why many high budget AAA games don't do it. Think about Witcher 3. Or Dragon Age Inquisition, gorgeous games that push computers to their limits. Tons of different equipment choices. Neither of them show jewelry.

2.) While I could see runes as being more technically feasible (they could be held, go on one's hip, or display as an icon over someone's head when harvesting) I think they fall short (and moreso with magical bracelets) when it comes to silhouetting one's gathering profession. For example, say someone had a rune resting on their hip: how is it conveyed that this person is a blacksmith or a miner? Different colors associated to gathering profession? Well that's going to require players to hop on a wiki and memorize what color relates to what profession. Not good. Maybe a symbol correlating to each profession engraved in the rune? You'd have to make each rune pretty large(larger than a gathering tool I'd think) and detailed to be readable by other players on the go. That takes up real estate on character models. In addition to that It would still be difficult to make out the symbol on each rune while the character is moving. This applies even more to magic bracelets around someone's arm. Another strike. The silhouetting of gather tools however can accomplish this pretty easily. Doesn't matter if someone is zipping by you, you'd be be able to make out the outline of a pickaxe without much thought (or wiking) and know that guy is a miner.

As a counter argument it could be said that you could use the UI real estate above a player's head to display their profession while still having runes and non-visible bracelets. I think this is a step in a backwards direction, though. That area has gotten really cluttered in other games and I'd expect it to be the same one in this one, with titles, guild names, and such. It also isn't as easily identifiable in the silhouetting department.